Francesco Zuccarelli - Rome and Tuscany (1702-1732)

Rome and Tuscany (1702-1732)

Born at Pitigliano, in southern Tuscany, Zuccarelli began his apprenticeship in Rome in c. 1713-14 with the portrait painters Giovanni Maria Morandi (1622-1717) and his pupil Pietro Nelli (1672-1740), under whose tutelage he learned the elements of design while absorbing the lessons of Roman classicism. Francesco completed his first commission in Pitigliano in the years 1724-27, a pair of chapel altarpieces. With the sponsorship of the Florentine art connoisseur, Francisco Maria Niccolò Gabburri (1676-1742), in the late 1720s and early 1730s Zuccarelli focused on etching. He eventually produced at least 43 prints, the majority consisting of two series which recorded the deteriorating frescoes of Giovanni da San Giovanni (1592-1636) and Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531). During his Tuscan period, though preoccuppied with figurative subjects, he began to experiment with drawings in landscape, and according to non-contemporary sources his introduction to the latter genre was through the Roman landscape painter and etcher Paolo Anesi (1697-1773).